The University of Texas at Austin will offer a tuition-free program to make college more affordable for low-income and middle-income students.

Here's what you need to know.

Tuition-Free College Program

The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted unanimously to create a $160 million endowment that will:

Completely cover tuition and fees for students from families that earn up to $65,000 a year who have financial need, and

Provide some assured tuition support to students from families with incomes of up to $125,000 who have financial need.

The new endowment, which will expand UT Austin's Texas Advance Commitment program, will begin in Fall 2020 and is expected to benefit 8,600 undergraduates per year with full tuition and 5,700 students with assured tuition support.

“Recognizing both the need for improved access to higher education and the high value of a UT Austin degree, we are dedicating a distribution from the Permanent University Fund to establish an endowment that will directly benefit students and make their degrees more affordable,” Chairman Kevin Eltife said after the vote. “This will benefit students of our great state for years to come.”

The endowment will cover tuition only (which is about $11,000 per year), but will not include additional living expenses such as room and board. According to UT Austin, its Permanent University Fund includes funds from oil and gas royalties earned from state-owned land in West Texas.

“There is no greater engine of social and economic mobility than a college degree, and this initiative ensures that more Texans will benefit from a high-quality UT Austin education. The use of Permanent University Funds to invest directly in students demonstrates the strong commitment of the Board of Regents and UT Austin to the values of public higher education,” Chancellor James B. Milliken said.

The debate about the future of higher education - including the cost of tuition - has become an important issue in the 2020 election.

Multiple presidential candidates from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have proposed a form of tuition-free college or student loan debt cancellation.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Sanders proposed to make college tuition-free and debt-free. In 2016, he introduced legislation - the College For All Act - that would public colleges tuition-free for students.

Sanders believes that college should be free for certain families earning below $125,000 (College For All Act) and that community college should be free for all students.

Warren also believes in universal tuition-free college. Specifically, Warren's plan for universal free college would: "Give every American the opportunity to attend a two-year or four-year public college without paying a dime in tuition or fees." Warren proposes that the federal government and states split the cost of tuition and fees, without impact to "need-based financial aid or academic instruction."

Latest Student Loan Debt Statistics

The rising amount of student loan debt nationally has caused several states and colleges and universities to offer financial help to students. Thelatest student loan debt statisticsfor 2019 show how serious the student loan debt crisis has become for borrowers. There are more than 44 million borrowers who collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loan debt in the U.S. alone. According to personal finance website Make Lemonade, student loan debt is now the second highest consumer debt category - behind only mortgage debt - and higher than bothcredit cardsand auto loans. Borrowers in the Class of 2017, on average, owe $28,650.